[William McKinley]

Yes, mine was a stand alone comment, but it was thrown out to counter a rhetorical trick by JohnGalt:

The Eagle Forum and the Free Congress Foundation are both against the Patriot Act, so if you are to the left of them

John Kerry and Howard Dean are now in opposition to the Patriot Act, so by the logic JG used, they occupy the same sphere on the left-right continuum as the Eagle Forum and Free Congress Foundation.

I did make a mistake though. I said that opposing the Patriot Act doesn't make one conservative, it makes one leftist or libertarian. What I should have said is that opposing the Patriot Act doesn't say if you are conservative or not, since libertarians and leftists universally oppose it. My phrasing was poor.

[Protagoras]

What I should have said is that opposing the Patriot Act doesn't say if you are conservative or not, since libertarians and leftists universally oppose it. My phrasing was poor.

If you had said that, it would have been incorrect. Many lefties love it. They can't wait to get their grubby little paws on it's provisions when they get back in power. Many of it's provisions were Democratic initiatives which were defeated by conservatives and other concerned Americans before being embraced by them after the Republicans co-opted them.

And I have never found anything that libertarians universally agree upon. Organizing them is like herding cats.